


thrown here or found

by spaceborn



Category: The Transformers (IDW Generation One)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Oral Sex, Rape Roleplay, Spark Sexual Interfacing, Sticky Sexual Interfacing, Trauma Recovery, Trust, past abusive relationship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-29
Updated: 2018-07-29
Packaged: 2019-06-18 02:31:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,285
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15475545
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spaceborn/pseuds/spaceborn
Summary: It only takes one step into the room for Ratchet to know he’s fucked up.Drift is standing on the far side of the kitchen, looking into the conservator, where neatly organized packages of energon candies are stacked, melding into a single prismatic gleam. His back is to Ratchet, and his shoulders are stiff. The long line of his spinal strut is bare, showing off the clamps where his Great Sword usually rests, but despite the fact that he’s unarmed, he radiates threat.He doesn’t turn around. “Where were you?”





	thrown here or found

**Author's Note:**

> everything you’re about to read is planned and consensual.

It only takes one step into the room for Ratchet to know he’s fucked up.

Drift is standing on the far side of the kitchen, looking into the conservator, where neatly organized packages of energon candies are stacked, melding into a single prismatic gleam. His back is to Ratchet, and his shoulders are stiff. The long line of his spinal strut is bare, showing off the clamps where his Great Sword usually rests, but despite the fact that he’s unarmed, he radiates threat.

He doesn’t turn around. “Where were you?”

“Out with First Aid and Ambulon,” Ratchet says carefully.

“Who else?”

“Lancet and Lotty.”

“Who else?”

Ratchet takes a step back, toward the door. “Are you drunk?”

“Do I sound drunk?” Drift slams the conservator door closed and finally faces Ratchet. His optics are dark, his lips pulled back to show off the tips of his sharpened incisor dentae. “Who else were you with, Ratchet? Who were you so preoccupied with that you couldn’t ping me to let me know you were going to be _three hours_ late?” He takes a leonine step around the kitchen island, his hips swaying. “Tell me,” he snaps, when Ratchet doesn’t answer immediately.

“I did tell you,” Ratchet grates out. “First Aid and Ambulon, and Lancet and Velocity.”

“I don’t believe you.”

“I don’t care what you believe or don’t. I’m not catering to your petty insecurities.”

Drift’s optics flash. “My _insecurities_?” Another step. A warning flashes in Ratchet’s HUD. Drift is one-third Ratchet’s bulk at best, but Ratchet knows exactly what he’s capable of—with or without his swords—and Ratchet’s newly, guiltily created suite of assessment and warning algorithms knows, too. It’s already analyzed Drift’s body language and the tone of his voice. And right now, it’s telling Ratchet to run.

Run. From his _conjunx_.

“My insecurities aren’t the problem. You’re the problem, Ratchet. Staying out later and later, coming home smelling like other mechs.” He gives Ratchet a condescending smirk. “Or did you think I wouldn’t notice?”

“I’m a doctor,” Ratchet says. His voice sounds very reasonable. “Of course I’m going to smell like other mechs. I had my hands in them all day.”

“But who had their hands in _you_?” Drift moves ever closer, stalking Ratchet like a turbowolf. Ratchet reaches back for the doorpad, and it feels like he’s reaching through rapidly cooling water, like he only has seconds before his hand becomes encased in ice and he’s frozen forever here, in the furious scope of Drift’s jealousy. “If you open that door, you won’t be walking back through it,” Drift says. “You can go back to whoever’s spike you sucked and tell them you need a place to live. I’m sure they’ll let you, if you exchange the right favors. It certainly worked to get you appointed CMO, didn’t it?”

Ratchet has to manually reset his voxcoder. “Drift, I didn’t— I wasn’t— It was friendly drinks. I finished my shift, and Ambulon said everyone was going for drinks. We went to Swerve’s. I had two drinks. I talked with Ambulon for a while, ran into Rung and talked to him for a while, and then I came here.”

Drift’s optics rove over Ratchet’s face. Then he shrugs. “I don’t believe you.”

“How am I supposed to convince you?” Ratchet bursts out. “It was _just drinks_. I’m sorry I forgot to ping you, but it was only drinks.”

Drift shakes his head. “You’re lying.”

Ratchet exvents hard. Clenches his hands by his sides to stop them from trembling. He hates the helplessness that crawls up through him. Hates laying out the facts, only for Drift to brush them aside, to invalidate them with one sentence. He lowers his head and reaches out, aiming to graze his fingers over Drift’s hip. “I don’t want to do this tonight, Drift, please. Let’s go to bed.” Drift watches him closely, but allows him to touch, and he quickly finds the transformation seam that always makes Drift gasp. Ratchet’s not in the mood for interfacing—is about as far from it as possible—but if they frag, or he eats Drift out for a while, maybe it’ll placate him. Or knock him out. Either way.

Drift leans into his hand, and Ratchet almost thinks this is going to work.

The blow knocks his visual suite out.

It’s open-handed, not a punch. Drift cut him a break. But Drift’s claws rake his cheek, his nasal ridge, split open his lip, fill his mouth with energon. He turns his head to spit it, frantically rebooting his optics, but Drift grabs him by the jaw and slams him back against the door, forcing his head up at an awkward angle.

“Swallow,” Drift demands. Ratchet tries, chokes. “ _Swallow it_.”

The lukewarm sludge sliding down his intake almost makes him purge, but Ratchet manages. His optics kick on again, revealing Drift, his expression cool, impassive. Distanced. It’s so at odds with his natural warmth, with his soft laughs and his sly jokes and the way he used to look at Ratchet like he thought Ratchet was everything, like he trusted Ratchet to heal all the world’s wounds and then some. 

Ratchet doesn’t know when it changed between them. When Drift’s casual possessiveness turned to true jealousy, and his occasional visits to the medbay became daily, even hourly, under the guise of “checking in” as a superior officer. Was it when they told the crew they were courting? When they moved in together, consolidating all their things so Ratchet could take up residence in Drift’s command suite? When they performed the rites?

He doesn’t remember when it started, and looking down at Drift’s face, he has the strangest feeling he won’t remember when it ends.

Drift’s fingers dig into his jaw. “Do you really think you can make me forget this by whoring yourself out to me? You’re not _that_ good in berth, Ratchet.” His grip tightens, and he shakes Ratchet lightly, patronizingly. “Pathetic.”

He stares at Ratchet for a long moment, optics following the uncomfortable motion of his intake when Ratchet has to swallow another mouthful of energon. His expression turns almost hungry. “Hmmm . . . It’s not such a bad idea, though. You can make it up to me, how about that? We can work through this together.”

Ratchet nods automatically. He can’t imagine doing anything else. The only other option is to walk out of here, and if he does that . . .

He’ll lose Drift entirely. And maybe . . . maybe if he plays along, maybe if he gains Drift’s trust back, he can untangle the mess between them. Show Drift that he is trustworthy. Remind Drift why he chose Ratchet as his bondmate, when there were so many other options. 

He presses into Drift’s hand. Brightens his optics. Even indulges his Spectralist nonsense and turns them the same light shade of blue Drift turns his own when they’re fragging. “Please,” he rasps.

Drift lets him go. He catches himself, bracing both hands flat on the door. He hadn’t realized Drift was pushing him up, forcing him to stand on the tips of his pedes. When Drift gives his hands a critical look, he edges one over to the doorpad and presses the command to lock it.

That earns him a smile. “There,” Drift says. He cups Ratchet’s cheek, running his thumb over the split in the metalmesh. “You do remember who you belong to.” The kiss he gives Ratchet is soft, sweet. Enough for Ratchet to pretend this is the Drift he used to know.

He puts his hands on Drift’s hips and moves into him. They’ve done this hundreds of times, guiding one another to the berth, kissing messily, finding their way by bumping into things. Ratchet has good memories there. He tries to dwell on them, sucking lightly on Drift’s bottom lip, massaging his hip struts and his sides. This could be any other night. This could be the two of them home from a day on shore leave. This could be good.

As his tongue slides over the point of one of Drift’s incisors, Drift bites down lightly. “You seem distracted.” His tone is mild.

The warning light pulses a soft red in the corner of Ratchet’s vision.

“I’m not.” He pulls back to look Drift in the optics. “I’m not, I promise.” He turns them around, lets Drift take the lead pushing him toward the berth. He’s exhausted, he doesn’t want to frag, but he tries not to let it show on his face. And Drift seems to buy it; he ducks his head and mouths along the cables in Ratchet’s neck, pushes a thigh between his legs and shoves him backward until the backs of his knees hit the berth. 

Drift laps at his mouth again, breathes, “Get on your back.”

A bolt of relief makes Ratchet give him one last kiss. _Oh, okay_. He knows what Drift wants; he’s done this so many times he can do it without thinking. He slides onto the berth and spreads out. As expected, Drift comes around the side of the berth and plants his hand on Ratchet’s shoulder, boosting himself up and swinging a leg over Ratchet’s helm, settling his knees on either side of Ratchet’s shoulders and facing the foot of the berth. He drags his claws over Ratchet’s chest. “Excited?” he asks, with an edge of mocking.

Ratchet nods. He brings his hands up, petting cursorily at Drift’s slim white thighs, up toward his panel. Drift isn’t running hot, not yet, so Ratchet teases his fingertips in the seams around his panel, laves the metal directly over Drift’s valve with one long lick. The relief he felt barely a minute ago has ebbed, and he’s looking—literally—at spending the next hour, at least, with his face in Drift’s valve. Usually, that’s fine. He can get into it, even.

Right now, he just—doesn’t want to.

Above him, Drift sighs.

“Do you even want to do this?” he asks, shifting until he can look upside-down at Ratchet between his legs. “Because you don’t seem very enthusiastic. This was _your_ idea, Ratchet. If you want to just recharge . . .”

“No, I want to,” Ratchet says. “I just need a minute.” He rubs his curled fingers over Drift’s panel.

Drift sighs again. “Whatever.” He starts to move, and Ratchet knows what will happen: Drift will go out and sit on the couch going through reports, making a point of ignoring him for the rest of the night. Possibly tomorrow as well. And the only way to get back in his good graces will be to give him this in an acceptably enthusiastic manner. 

So Ratchet may as well do it now.

He grabs Drift’s thighs and pulls him down against his mouth, licks _hard_. Manually kicks his cooling fans on. 

Drift’s hands come down on Ratchet’s chest. “Oh, well then,” he says, laughing. “Eager after all.” He shifts his hips, and thankfully, _thankfully_ his panel slides aside. 

Ratchet doesn’t think. He puts himself on autopilot, spreading Drift open and sliding his glossa inside him, counterbalancing hard and fast licks into him with slow rubs of a thumb over his anterior node. Drift starts to shake after only a couple of minutes, and he starts leaking lubricant into Ratchet’s mouth, lots of it as usual, but now swallowing it reminds Ratchet of being pinned against the door, so he lets it run down his chin and pool on the berth beneath him.

Drift’s pleased gasps trail off. He shifts and peers down at Ratchet again. “What’s this?” He reaches behind him, brings his fingers back dripping with lubricant. “Do I not taste good enough for you?”

“You do.” Ratchet kisses his thigh, marring his plating with sticky smears. 

“Then I expect you to enjoy it instead of letting it leak all over my berth. It’s getting in my knee servos.”

Ratchet nods. He’s queasy, actually, but if he has to analyze the composite data from a deep systems scan to see if this is enough to make him purge, he might purge anyway.

He goes back at it; Drift starts shaking again, starts rocking his hips, riding Ratchet’s face. He tastes like he’s close.

It’s all going to work out.

Then Ratchet’s comm pings.

Drift stills above him, picking up on the low-frequency buzz. “What was that?”

“It’s Rodimus,” Ratchet says quickly. Truthfully. “A mass ping, asking who’s on shift at the medbay tomorrow.” He packages up the message, offers it to Drift over a short-range private channel. But Drift refuses the transfer. “Drift. I’m trying to forward it.”

His warning algorithm flashes.

“I want to see what happened tonight,” Drift says abruptly. “At Swerve’s.”

“Okay.” Ratchet taps into his memory core, starts looking for the timestamps. “I can send you the visual feed. Let me condense—”

“No,” Drift interrupts. “I want to _see_ it.” He moves off Ratchet and flips around to spread his legs over Ratchet’s abdomen instead of his face. Then he raps on Ratchet’s chestplate. “Open up.”

Ratchet freezes. It’s out of his lubricant-wet mouth before he can stop it. “No.”

They haven’t sparkmerged in weeks. He doesn’t want it to be like this.

He doesn’t want every merge, for the rest of their lives, to be tainted by this. 

“Drift.” He puts his hands over Drift’s. “Drift. Take the transfer. It was from Rodimus.”

“Rodimus wouldn’t want you, buymech.” Drift bears down on him, almost forcing his chestplate apart before Ratchet’s medical override seals it closed. “Not when you’re slutting it up with half the medbay staff. Or is it more than half?” He shakes Ratchet’s hands off and claws at his chest, prying loose curls of paint around his Autobot sigil. “ _Open your spark plating_.”

“No,” Ratchet gasps. “Drift, no, not like this. We’re not like this. _You’re_ not like this.”

“I wouldn’t have to be, if it weren’t for you.” Drift wedges the tips of his claws into the miniscule seam in Ratchet’s chestplate. “Open, or I’m going to make you open. This is your last warning.”

“Why won’t you _believe me_ ,” Ratchet forces out. It’s almost a sob. He’s almost sobbing. The overbright glare from his optics shines off Drift’s face. “What happened to us? What did I _do_?”

Drift doesn’t answer.

He rips Ratchet’s chestplate apart.

Ratchet’s voxcoder fritzes out on his scream, and he can’t remember how to reboot it, not when the panic swamps in and closes his vision down to a void of darkness surrounding the cruel glow of Drift’s newly revealed spark—oh, he really is going to do it, he’s going to force this on Ratchet, he’s going to dive inside him and root out his memories, comb through them for evidence that Ratchet has been unfaithful, that his paranoia is founded, that Ratchet somehow turned this thing between them sour, that Ratchet was the one who changed.

It doesn’t matter if Drift finds no proof.

It will still be Ratchet’s fault.

It will always be his fault.

Drift’s spark comes down on his.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Warmth.

“I’ve got you,” Drift says, his voice fading into Ratchet as if from across a chasm. “There, Ratch, I have you.”

He presses his mouth to Ratchet’s audial, exvents shakily, murmurs in that familiar commanding and affectionate tone, “I have you. Let it go now. Let it go. You’re so good.” He slides his hands under Ratchet’s arms, urging Ratchet to wrap them around his neck, and he clings to Ratchet in return, resting their forehelms together. He doesn’t force his way into Ratchet’s memories. He doesn’t dig into him at all. His spark pulses soft and soothing, and his noninvasive presence in Ratchet’s spark and mind and frame curls protectively around him, surrounding him entirely. “You’re perfect. You’re mine. I have you.”

Ratchet still can’t speak. But he grips the back of Drift’s neck, exvents, focuses on the feel of him. Nods. Of course they both knew Drift wouldn’t be able to keep up the pretense once they merged. He may put on a good show, but there’s nothing of it in his spark.

Drift holds him steady with his arms and that spark, his light lapping at Ratchet’s, until Ratchet’s venting levels out and his processor finally cycles down from its blind panic. 

He swallows and manually reboots his voxcoder. “Drift.”

“I’m here.” Drift carefully kisses his mouth, his split cheek. “Run a systems scan for me, okay?”

Ratchet obeys, sliding into their merge and inviting Drift deeper, then directing him to the readout. Drift flicks through it as it goes, waiting until it’s done to drop another kiss on Ratchet’s mouth. _What do you need?_

His voice in the merge is accented differently. Rougher, less of Crystal City. Ratchet leans against it with everything he has. _You._

Drift nods, kisses him again, and again. _I love you so much,_ he says. _I trust you. I believe you. I will always believe you._

Ratchet arches into him, throws himself wide open and takes Drift in. It’s a pure merge, the two of them stripped down, no memories to cloud it. 

Ratchet doesn’t quite remember when it ends. He comes back to his frame later, in layers, the strata of himself recovered in uneven succession. His face is clean, and the berth too. His chestplate is closed, uninjured, the freshly installed modification inside that allowed Drift to rip it open having done its job.

Drift has an arm over him.

“Hey,” he says quietly, when Ratchet leans back to look at him. His expression is worried and gentle, his body framed by the lights from the city outside their hotel room. He pets the unmarked side of Ratchet’s face. Unlike the chestplate mod, Drift’s claws cause lasting damage, and there’s guilt in his voice when he asks, “Are you okay?”

“Hmm-hmm.”

“Ratchet. Words, please.”

“I’m okay.” His voice is hoarse. He swaps to comms. _“Just want to lie here awhile. Stop fussing about my face.”_

“As long as you need,” Drift says. He slides a thumb over Ratchet’s lip, wincing at the tear. 

Ratchet nips him and repeats, _“Stop_ fussing _,”_ earning himself a smile.

It’s quiet for a long time. Until Ratchet gathers himself and says, “You trust me.”

Drift onlines his optics. “Yes. I trust you.”

Uncomfortably, “You know I would show you what I get up to, if you asked.”

“I know,” Drift says. “But I wouldn’t ask.” He props himself up on an arm and eases Ratchet into lying flat so Drift can look down at him. “What Pharma did wasn’t your fault.”

Ratchet looks away. All of this may have been about Pharma, but hearing his designation stings the most.

Drift grips his jaw and turns him back. It’s an echo of what he did at the door, though paralyzingly gentle. Guidance, not force. The difference between Ratchet asking Drift to do this with him, to recreate this, and what Pharma did to him without permission, those years ago.

“It wasn’t your fault,” Drift says. “Say it.”

“It—wasn’t my fault.”

“It wasn’t your fault.”

“I know that.”

Drift taps his jaw. “Repeat it.”

“It wasn’t my fault.”

“That’s right. And you belong to me.”

That one comes easier. “I belong to you.”

“Which means when I say you’re good and perfect and it was nothing you did, you have to agree.” Drift lets him go and tucks his face against Ratchet’s intake; Ratchet can feel his mischievous little grin. “Those are the rules, Ratch.”

Ratchet _hmph_ s at him for being incorrigible and self-satisfied and wonderful. “They are, are they?”

“Yes,” Drift says, settling half on top of him, a warm and welcome weight holding him grounded. “They are.”


End file.
